FAC: Planning for BP money will pay off for counties

Published: Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 04:08 PM.

Florida is behind other Gulf Coast states in preparing a multi-year plan to spend money that will come to a 23-county consortium through the RESTORE Act.

But according to a representative of the Florida Association of Counties, the time the state is taking to formulate its plan will be beneficial to local governments in Northwest Florida and elsewhere.

“What Florida has been able to accomplish with the RESTORE Act is unprecedented,” said FAC Policy Adviser Cragin Mosteller. “Florida is the only state in which the dollars go directly to the counties. In the other states the money goes to the governor.”

Mosteller said the FAC “is really proud” of its role in ensuring that money coming down from Washington, D.C., when BP Clean Water Act fines are paid will go directly to counties and not be controlled by state government.

The Association of Counties is “close to reaching an agreement with the governor creating a partnership” so that Rick Scott’s office also will have a hand in the flow of funds.

“We’ll have a partnership rather than an unbalanced relationship,” she said.

But while Florida seemingly has made great strides to prepare to receive money from a BP settlement, apparently there still is much to do.

Okaloosa County Commissioner Dave Parisot, who with Mosteller met Thursday with the Northwest Florida Daily News editorial board, said “nobody is going to get a dollar (of RESTORE Act funds) until they get a multi-year plan approved.”

While the plans being discussed will not affect the millions of dollars dedicated exclusively to eight Northwest Florida counties most impacted by the oil spill, delays could mean a lag in distributing money for particular projects.

Parisot said local governments and the FAC have been hamstrung in preparing their multi-year plans because the federal government hasn’t issued any guidelines about how the BP money should be spent.

The six-month deadline to formulate the guidelines has passed, he said.

Mosteller said the timing of when project plans are finalized and when a final settlement between BP and the Justice Department is reached won’t affect whether the money for major regional projects arrives, but perhaps when it arrives.

BP and the federal government are scheduled to meet in court in mid-February to litigate the amount of fines ultimately paid. A settlement has long been expected before the two sides go to court.

Mosteller on Thursday also outlined the association’s priorities for the legislative session that begins in March.
It seeks reform of the state’s Medicaid cost-sharing relationships between Florida and its 67 counties and an updated method of taxing for communications services.

The association also is calling on the state to back off plans to shift the cost of funding juvenile justice programs to the counties.

The association contends the communications services tax provides “an important revenue source for local government” and wants the Legislature to find ways to simplify and administer the collection.

Mosteller called the cost-sharing relationship for Medicaid “very complex” and “flawed.”

She said a governor’s office study found billing to some counties was “wrong up to 50 percent of the time.”

The association wants the cost-sharing plan in place dissolved. Doing so, Mosteller said, would eliminate administrative costs for both the counties and the state.

If the state won’t go along with dissolving that plan, Mosteller suggested a formula should be found that pays “proportionately and consistently” among counties.

“If we can’t find a way out we need to find a way of fixing this very broken system,” she said.

The association also wants the state to take full responsibility for covering costs incurred by the Department of Juvenile Justice.

That reform is necessary was made clear in a lawsuit brought by Okaloosa County, Mosteller said.

In that case, an administrative law judge found that billing practices through which counties help subsidize some part of the state’s burden for juvenile detention to be “internally inconsistent and not supported by facts or logic,” she said.

Florida is behind other Gulf Coast states in preparing a multi-year plan to spend money that will come to a 23-county consortium through the RESTORE Act.

But according to a representative of the Florida Association of Counties, the time the state is taking to formulate its plan will be beneficial to local governments in Northwest Florida and elsewhere.

“What Florida has been able to accomplish with the RESTORE Act is unprecedented,” said FAC Policy Adviser Cragin Mosteller. “Florida is the only state in which the dollars go directly to the counties. In the other states the money goes to the governor.”

Mosteller said the FAC “is really proud” of its role in ensuring that money coming down from Washington, D.C., when BP Clean Water Act fines are paid will go directly to counties and not be controlled by state government.

The Association of Counties is “close to reaching an agreement with the governor creating a partnership” so that Rick Scott’s office also will have a hand in the flow of funds.

“We’ll have a partnership rather than an unbalanced relationship,” she said.

But while Florida seemingly has made great strides to prepare to receive money from a BP settlement, apparently there still is much to do.

Okaloosa County Commissioner Dave Parisot, who with Mosteller met Thursday with the Northwest Florida Daily News editorial board, said “nobody is going to get a dollar (of RESTORE Act funds) until they get a multi-year plan approved.”

While the plans being discussed will not affect the millions of dollars dedicated exclusively to eight Northwest Florida counties most impacted by the oil spill, delays could mean a lag in distributing money for particular projects.

Parisot said local governments and the FAC have been hamstrung in preparing their multi-year plans because the federal government hasn’t issued any guidelines about how the BP money should be spent.

The six-month deadline to formulate the guidelines has passed, he said.

Mosteller said the timing of when project plans are finalized and when a final settlement between BP and the Justice Department is reached won’t affect whether the money for major regional projects arrives, but perhaps when it arrives.

BP and the federal government are scheduled to meet in court in mid-February to litigate the amount of fines ultimately paid. A settlement has long been expected before the two sides go to court.

Mosteller on Thursday also outlined the association’s priorities for the legislative session that begins in March.
It seeks reform of the state’s Medicaid cost-sharing relationships between Florida and its 67 counties and an updated method of taxing for communications services.

The association also is calling on the state to back off plans to shift the cost of funding juvenile justice programs to the counties.

The association contends the communications services tax provides “an important revenue source for local government” and wants the Legislature to find ways to simplify and administer the collection.

Mosteller called the cost-sharing relationship for Medicaid “very complex” and “flawed.”

She said a governor’s office study found billing to some counties was “wrong up to 50 percent of the time.”

The association wants the cost-sharing plan in place dissolved. Doing so, Mosteller said, would eliminate administrative costs for both the counties and the state.

If the state won’t go along with dissolving that plan, Mosteller suggested a formula should be found that pays “proportionately and consistently” among counties.

“If we can’t find a way out we need to find a way of fixing this very broken system,” she said.

The association also wants the state to take full responsibility for covering costs incurred by the Department of Juvenile Justice.

That reform is necessary was made clear in a lawsuit brought by Okaloosa County, Mosteller said.

In that case, an administrative law judge found that billing practices through which counties help subsidize some part of the state’s burden for juvenile detention to be “internally inconsistent and not supported by facts or logic,” she said.